The Roman Catholic Church is one of the world’s largest and oldest organizations, yet communication among its members serving in ecclesiastical occupations (e.g., priests) remains relatively unexplored. The present study addresses this paucity of research by examining the relationship between 145 U.S. priests’ and sisters’ perceptions of their religious superiors’ aggressive communication and perceptions of the superiors’ credibility, as well as their own experiences of job and vocational satisfaction, motivation, and organizational commitment. Results indicated that superior verbal aggressiveness was associated with priests’ and sisters’ job motivation, organizational commitment, and perceptions of superior credibility, whereas superior argumentativeness only predicted perceptions of superior competence. The pattern of findings also suggests that superior aggressive communication functions differently across the ecclesiastical occupations studied, with diocesan priests appearing to be most influenced by their superiors’ aggressive communication and sisters seemingly the least influenced. Implications for management and organizational communication research and the Catholic Church are discussed.

中文翻译：

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美国天主教神父和修女之间的上下级积极沟通

罗马天主教会是世界上最大和最古老的组织之一，但其在教会职业（例如牧师）中服务的成员之间的交流仍然相对未开发。本研究通过检查 145 名美国神父和修女对其宗教上级积极沟通的看法与上级可信度的看法之间的关系，以及他们自己的工作和职业满意度、动机、和组织承诺。结果表明，卓越的言语攻击性与神父和修女的工作动机、组织承诺和卓越可信度的感知相关，而卓越的争辩性仅预测对卓越能力的感知。研究结果的模式还表明，在所研究的教会职业中，高级攻击性沟通的功能不同，教区神父似乎受上级攻击性沟通的影响最大，而姐妹们似乎受影响最小。讨论了对管理和组织传播研究以及天主教会的影响。